


How Can I Forget When It's Carved Into My Skin?

by ereshai



Series: Various Prompt Fills [6]
Category: Firefly
Genre: Angst, Gen, Off-Screen OC Death, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-06
Updated: 2012-12-06
Packaged: 2017-11-20 10:35:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/584473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ereshai/pseuds/ereshai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for this prompt on LJ's comment-fic:</p><p>Firefly, Mal, the story behind his tattoo</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Can I Forget When It's Carved Into My Skin?

_It's a reminder of my misspent youth._ That's what Mal tells anybody who asks about it. _Got blind drunk one night when I was a buck private. It's nothing._ And like all good lies, it's partly true.

Not even Zoe knows the true story of that tattoo, and Zoe knows all his secrets, even the ones he tells himself he's forgotten.

Misspent youth, yes, sir. Running wild, more like. Blind drunk, yes again. But he wasn't a private, not yet. And it's not nothing. It's definitely not nothing.

They weren't brothers, but as good as. They did everything together. Chasing girls, stirring up trouble, stealing whiskey, taking the mule without his ma's permission. Getting drunk and waking up tattooed.

He doesn't remember why they chose it. He's not even sure what it looks like anymore. That would require the use of a mirror, and while he is so very, very pretty, he's not a vain man. He's got better things to do than to go about making eyes at his own reflection.

He thinks he knows what he would see if he did take a gander at it. _His_ face, sightless eyes staring up at a bright blue sky. They did everything together, like joining the Independent cause to fight off the Alliance. Until that one bright day, when a nervous buck private fires a shot at a hidden enemy, only to discover how very wrong he'd been. That day they stopped doing everything together. The day that started the job Serenity Valley eventually finished.

 _It's nothing,_ he says. _I almost forgot I had it._ That's what he tries to tell himself.


End file.
